LIGO

The 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Rainer Weiss, Barry C. Barish, and Kip S. Thorne for “decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves.” In 2015, the LIGO Scientific Collaboration detected the gravitational waves emitted by the collision of two massive black holes over a billion light years away. This monumental discovery was the first…

This afternoon, the LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration announced the fourth significant detection of gravitational waves. This event, dubbed GW170814, originated from the inspiral and collision of two black holes, located more than a billion light years away. The two black holes had estimated masses of 31 and 25 solar masses, with roughly 3 solar masses’ worth of energy…

This morning, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) announced its third detection of gravitational waves emitted by two colliding black holes. The detection, named GW170104, was observed by LIGO on January 4, 2017 at 10:11:58 UTC with the two black holes having estimated masses of 31 and 19 solar masses. The final black hole’s mass is estimated to be around 50 solar…

On December 26, 2015 at 03:38:53 UTC, the twin detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) observed gravitational waves produced by the collision of two stellar-mass black holes. The black holes that emitted these waves are inferred to have masses of 14 and 8 solar masses, and the final black hole has a mass of 21 solar masses. This event, named GW151226,…

The gravitational waves detected on September 14, 2015 at 09:50:45 UTC from the two detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is first observation of a binary black hole merger. The initial black holes are found to have individual masses of 29 and 36 solar masses and merged to form a single black hole with a mass of 62 solar masses. The merger occurred at a…

LIGO scientist David Reitze takes us on a 1.3 billion year journey that begins with the violent merger of two black holes in the distant universe. The event produced gravitational waves, tiny ripples in the fabric of space and time, which LIGO detected on September 14, 2015, as they passed Earth.
Credit: LIGO / SXS Collaboration / R. Hurt and T. Pyle
On September 14, 2015 at 09:50:45 UTC t…

The Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced Monday that India intends to host the third LIGO detector. The Prime Minister made the announcement as he inaugurated the 101st Indian Science Congress at the University of Jammu on February 3rd, 2014.

“India will partner the international scientific community in the establishment of some of the world’s major R&D…